


far away, too close

by ponderinfrustration



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Coping Mechanisms, F/M, Longing, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 08:22:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19460107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderinfrustration/pseuds/ponderinfrustration
Summary: They move to Norway after what happened, but Raoul needs movement, while Christine needs stillness.





	far away, too close

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ConvenientAlias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/gifts).



> Written for a prompt that ConvenientAlias sent me a little while ago on Tumblr.

His letters come to her across seas, over mountains and through valleys and along worn dusty trails. He writes softly of the things he’s seen, skies and bones and art and music. He is not a musician but he knows enough of notation that he copies the notes carefully for her, that she may sing them to herself, feel the music on her tongue. He tells her of horses, of cattle, of dogs, of whole wide worlds and peoples and riches she has never seen but something burns inside of her to _go,_ to go and be with him as he rides through deserts and scrubland, to hold him in her arms at night, the smell of flowers and trees balmy in the air, and kiss him beneath the stars and feel his hands upon her skin again. 

He has become a wandering man, she knows. It is as if something has torn loose in him after everything that happened, as if his feet cannot bear to be still for a moment too long. And she understands, deep inside, because the thing that makes him wander is the same thing that keeps her still, that has her setting notes to pages and tending flowers and watching sunsets, and wishing she could pick up and go, could follow him and trace his skin with her fingertips and taste the exotic fruits upon his tongue. And maybe she would, if it were not for this thing in her bones, tethering her to the land, and to the sky she knows, has learned to know. 

He promises her his love, promises her he will be back soon and that this time he will not leave again, or will not leave so soon, promises her that someday they will have a family, a little son and two tiny daughters, but only if she wants to. 

They write often of their mythical family, and what they will name the children they may never have. (Philippe, for his brother. Adelia, a very musical name for a girl that fits her tongue gently, and Anja, and maybe their girls would be twins, or maybe their brother would be in between.) Their children will each have golden curls, and blue eyes. Will chatter in scraps of languages learned from their parents, will have quick and clever fingers, and be gentle to all living things.

She dreams, at night, of having him in her arms again, but that she only occasionally puts in her letters. There are not words to frame all that she feels in her heart. 

* * *

He returns in August. It is warm, the air down by the river clogged with buzzing insects that settle on their skin and make them itch, but they walk together, his fingers twined with hers. He has grown broad while he has been away, his skin tanned and hair paled to the lightest gold, his moustache become a neat beard. There are tiny scars on the backs of his hands that he never had before (scars beneath his clothes, that he has not yet shown her, that he did not admit in his letters for fear of worrying her), and she holds his fingers to her lips and kisses them, and brushes those tiny scars. 

They lie together in the long grass, and she kisses the warm skin of his neck, wraps her arm around him to keep him as close as she can. 

“The next time you go,” she whispers, breathing the words into his skin, “I’m going with you.” She’s got to, she knows that, she feels it deep in her blood now that he is back. She is tethered here on this land, but it is only half-tethered, when she could be with him, when she could have his arms around her every night and wake every morning to those blue eyes, bluer than the sky. 

His kiss is gentle in her hair. “If you are certain,” he whispers, only and ever wanting what is best for her, and she nods. 

“I am.” She draws in a steadying breath, lifts her head, and brushes her lips against his. There are words she cannot put into letters, though he puts them in his all of the time, but she can speak them here like this, just for his lips to feel, and know. “I love you.” 


End file.
